The invention relates to a beverage bottle having fingergrips, and more particularly to a beer bottle having fingergrips which are specially adapted to permit high speed filling of the bottle without excessive beer foaming.
The typical beverage bottle consists of a hollow vessel with a narrow mouth for holding and carrying liquids. While not particularly designed to facilitate the consumer to drink the contents directly from the bottle, it has become increasingly popular in recent years for consumers to walk around holding the bottles and sipping the contents. Young people today are very active and very often drink their beverages while on the go, or in conversation standing up, or even while engaged in other physical activities.
Since the contents of a bottle is typically cold, such as cold beer or soda, condensation results in the formation of dew on the outside of the bottle. One of the drawbacks associated with drinking the contents directly from such a bottle is this dew which causes the bottle to become slippery. This problem is exacerbated when the beverage bottles are stored in an ice cooler where ice slush clings to the bottles as they are removed from the cooler.
In an attempt to solve this problem, beverage bottles have been provided with rough outer surfaces. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,403,804 and Design U.S. Pat. No. 308,335 describe beverage bottles whose outer surface is etched with a multiplicity of closely spaced ridges. Although the presence of such ridges improves the grip which one can apply on the bottle, slipperiness of the outer surface remains a problem. Furthermore, the presence of these ridges interferes with labelling of the bottle.
It is known to provide heavy jugs containing, for example, cider or wine with fingergrips to facilitate lifting and holding of the jug and the pouring of its contents. For example, Design U.S. Pat. No. 91,653 to Guyer illustrates a jug having four fingergrips on one side and a thumbgrip disposed on the opposite side of the jug. However, such fingergrips have not been provided for single serving beer bottles, which are slender and light compared to cider jugs.
One of the major problems which would have been encountered in providing fingergrips in beer bottles, if such an attempt were ever made prior to the present invention, is the excessive product foaming which occurs during conventional high speed filling of such bottles. In state of the art filling processes, air is drawn out of the bottle and beer is injected radially from a filling tube inserted in the top of the bottle. As the beer hits the inner surface of the bottle, it flows down the surface in an annular stream. During this process, some foam is generated, however, the amount of foam does not impede the process.
On the other hand, upon filling a beer bottle having fingergrip and thumbgrip indentations, such as those illustrated in the Guyer patent, excessive product foaming occurs which results in beer spewing out of the top of the bottle and an incomplete fill.